[jats-list] JATS-List Guidelines

JATS-List hosts discussion on the Journal Article Tag Suite itself; JATS
applications, implementations, and customizations; and JATS user questions.
JATS-List is open to everyone: users and developers, experts and novices alike.
There is no restriction to what may be posted on JATS-List provided it is
directly related to the JATS. We ask that commercial announcements on
JATS-List be directly related to the JATS, short, and that their subject
lines start with [ANN].

JATS-List is not sponsored, endorsed, or owned by NISO or NLM, and it has no
official standing with any standards agency or other organization responsible
for the maintenance or promulgation of the Journal Article Tag Suite. However,
JATS-List was established with the encouragement of members of the NISO
Standardized Markup for Journal Articles committee and members of the NLM
staff responsible for the JATS, and members of the working group are among
the subscribers to the list.

Only subscribers can post to JATS-List, but since the goal is to increase the
level of knowledge about the JATS and uses of the JATS, JATS-List is being
archived for everybody to view. The topics discussed on JATS-List change as
new ideas arise or existing problems are dealt with, but the archive contains
all of the ideas and solutions that have been discussed on the list.

JATS-List is provided by Mulberry Technologies, Inc., as a service to the
Journal Article Tag Suite user community and journal publishers, journal
archives, and journal users.

If your unsubscription is unsuccessful:
o be sure that you are unsubscribing EXACTLY the same email address as is
subscribed
o select the "digest" button if your subscription was to the one-message
a day digest.

Posting Guidelines

Only subscribers can post to JATS-List, and only from the exact
address they used
when they subscribed.

There is no restriction on what may be posted to JATS-List provided
it is related
to JATS. Items concerning XML but without a direct connection to
JATS should be
posted to an XML-related list instead of to JATS-List. Items
concerning XSL (XSLT
or XSL-FO) are welcome on XSL-List, but are inappropriate on JATS-List unless
specific to use of XSL with JATS documents.

Do not begin your subject line with "help" or "subscribe" since the
list software
will bounce the message because it looks like it is an
administrative request.
Similarly, expect messages to be delayed if they have subject lines
that contain
these or similar words that are often used in administrative
requests ("remove",
"unsubscribe", "delete") . They will be sent to the list owner/moderator, who
will approve them for posting, a process that takes time.

It is best to start a new message for a new thread. Do not start a
new thread by
replying to an unrelated message and just changing the subject
line, since the
header of your message will contain references to the previous
message and your
new message will appear in the archive as one of the replies to the original
message.

Good subject lines -- those that describe the subject matter of
your message --
not only increase the chances that you will receive answers to questions or
responses to comments, but also make your message and any replies to it
accessible in the list archive.

Subscribers to the digest should reply to messages by:

* creating a new email message
* addressing the message to: <jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
* copying the subject line of the message or thread to which you
are responding
into your subject line
* copying only the text to which you are responding into your message

Both subscribers to the full list and subscribers to the list
digest should post
their messages to jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; the messages will be
received by both subscribers to the list and subscribers to the digest.

Name the tag set and version you are using, for example tell us that you are
using "Archiving 2.3" or "Publishing 3.0". This information is frequently
necessary to diagnose a problem exactly, and always helps respondents give
good advice.

If you are using a customized version of one of the public Tag Sets, describe
the customizations if they are relevant to your question.

If you need to comply with application rules such as the guidelines of a
publisher or archive tell us what guidelines you are using.

If you are replying to a post, trim the quoted message to just the parts to
which you are replying.

In addition to following simple rules of net etiquette and common sense, you
will improve the chances that you will receive prompt and helpful
responses by:

* Asking questions specific enough that answers are possible.
Describe what you
are trying to do and how you approached it, or what you are trying to
communicate and what options you have already explored.
* Illustrating your question with a demonstration of the problem.
Well-composed questions frequently include a small XML sample, pointers
to Tag Library pages, and a description of your need.

Use Informative Subject Lines

When posting to JATS-List, do not use uninformative subject lines
like "Urgent",
"Question", or "Newbie HELP!!!", which don't say anything about what your
problem is. Instead, use a meaningful subject line that will make sense to
the people whose help you are trying to get. It may even get a response
from people who normally shy away from "beginner" questions.

Informative subject lines make the JATS-List archive more useful since
people with the same problem will more easily find the relevant threads.

Do Not Cross-Post

Cross-posting to JATS-List and to another list, even XML-Dev or the
XSL-List, is
generally counter-productive. No list's archive will contain the
complete thread;
cross-posts from non-subscribers continuing the thread will bounce;
and JATS-List
subscribers who are not also on the other list will only see part
of the thread.
Subscribers to both lists may see two copies of the message, annoying them as
well.

Replies Go to the List

The reply address of JATS-List messages (and of digests) is
jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx so REPLIES GO TO THE LIST BY DEFAULT. If you
want to reply to just the author of a post, you should change the "To:" field
in your reply.

Use Short Quotes of Previous Messages in Replies

Please do not quote entire messages just to add a few lines at the
beginning or
end. Instead, quote the parts to which you are directly replying or
quote enough
to establish the context.

Everybody on the list has already received the message that you are
quoting, and
anyone searching the archive will find your message and the previous message
listed under the same thread.

Subscribers to the List will just ignore most of the quoted messages and move
to the next post, but subscribers to JATS-List Digest will mostly have to
page past the quoted messages to reach the next material which they are
interested in reading.

Postings Must Be in Plain Text Only

Postings to JATS-List must be in plain text only. JATS-List does
not allow HTML
postings because many users cannot display them appropriately, and
because they
are unnecessarily large.

Base 64 Banned

Postings to JATS-List may not be in Base 64 because it makes a mess
of both the
digest and the archive.

Attachments Are Banned

Since Mulberry's mailing lists have in the past been unwittingly used for
spreading viruses in e-mail attachments, all e-mail attachments are banned
from JATS-List.

Tagged articles are XML files, and XML files are text files, so this does not
affect the majority of posts to the list since you can include a file's text
in the body of your message. If you need to refer to a binary file such as a
PDF file, you should put the file on a Web site or FTP site and include
the file's URL in your JATS-List post.

If you do include an attachment in your JATS-List post -- even a HTML
attachment -- your message will bounce. (Note: if your email application
automatically creates such attachments, or creates email with a mime type
of multipart/alternative your posting to JATS-list will bounce. You must
persuade your emailer to send plain text only in order to post to this list.)

No "TEST" Messages

Please DO NOT SEND TEST MESSAGES to see if your messages are getting through
to this list. Simply wait until you have something substantive to say and
send that to see if it goes through or not. By using a real message as your
"test" message, you get the same information you would have gotten with a
"test", and you avoid sending clutter to the list subscribers. (Think about
it: annoying the people you are about to ask for help is not the
best strategy.)

Because it is a public resource created by and for the entire JATS user
community, we do not edit JATS-List. Therefore, it is the responsibility of
list subscribers not to post anything to the list that they do not want
publicly available, possibly for a very long time.

Postings in the list archives will be complete, including: all contents,
examples, sample data, code or code fragments, and email header and footer
contents. An automated process will obscure the domain portion of email
addresses (the part after the @ sign).in the headers and footers of postings,
but no guarantee is made that this process will be completely successful.
Other than this, all postings will be archived in public as received.

Further, we at Mulberry could not, even if we wanted to, edit all of the
archives of JATS-List. Several third-parties have created unofficial archives
of other Mulberry lists, often without asking, or even informing, Mulberry,
and we think it likely that they will also archive JATS-List. Postings to
JATS-List will be included in an unknown and ever-changing variety of web
publications. If you don't want your questions/comments/answers in public
view, don't post them to JATS-List.

Third-party Archives of JATS-List

Third parties are welcome to create searchable or reference archives of
JATS-List provided they adhere to the following guidelines:

* The material is clearly labelled as being from JATS-List, with an
acknowledgement of Mulberry's role as provider of JATS-List.
* There is a navigable pointer to the official list page at
http://www.mulberrytech.com/JATS/JATS-List/ either on every posting or
associated with the user interface such that it is visible with the
postings.
* List postings are unedited.
* Either the entire archive of the list is provided, or there is a clearly
stated method for selecting the subset of the list that is provided.

Mulberry does not provide third parties with help to create their archives,
does not endorse particular third party archives, and has no control over
the ways in which they present the material in their systems.

People or organizations that publish the contents of JATS-List without
following the guidelines above are being very antisocial. Please bookmark
either the official JATS-List archive or one provided by a service that
plays nicely in the community and shun those who do not give credit where
credit is due.

If You Stop Getting JATS-List Messages

If you stop receiving JATS-List messages, you may have been removed because
mail to you was bouncing. You are not being picked on, and you can just
rejoin the list.